Australians who refuse to answer questions in the 2016 census over privacy concerns surrounding the retention of their personal information could face heavy fines.
The ABS are, for the first time, going to retain your name and address with your census reply. Obviously this is an invasion of privacy. An awful lot of data seems to get stolen or misused eventually — pious protestations by the ABS that it will not be stolen or misused are not worth a lot. The ABS’s solution is to warn everyone of fines:
Although the maximum penalty is one penalty unit – a $180 fine – a person could receive a series of directions relating to the completion of a single census form, potentially significantly increasing the fine.
Census night is Tuesday August 9. Ain’t big government wonderful? How did we ever manage before?